Echo
by dragoon811
Summary: All he wanted, all of his years, was for someone to love him. To see him. Not what he presented. Not what he had to be. Not what his past and made him. Someone to know who he was, what he had gone through. (Complete)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Hello! Welcome to my take on a Time-Turner fic. I hope this version hasn't quite been done before. I honestly haven't read very many of them. I am PURPOSELY messing with the time line. I don't care who perished in which order originally, because this is my version. I had to fix it. :( Many thanks to the lovely adelarchersnape for beta-reading and brit-picking for me. (you're the best!)

Warnings do apply, of course: character death (not SS or HG, I promise), implied character death, violence, self-harm um... I really do hope you enjoy the tale. I promise it will end happily.

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Hermione's Decision**

Hermione's hands were shaking as she ducked down a corner, clutching Harry's invisibility cloak. He was so wrapped up with the Weasleys and the overall victory that he hadn't see her take it. Her heart was pounding. Everything was wrong. So wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen. The world, her world, was off-kilter. It was bad enough that Fred was gone. Tonks and Remus... but for some reason what had torn her heart open and had her rummaging through her bag was what had happened to Snape.

She kept hearing herself tell Harry it was going to be okay. That Dumbledore trusted Snape. That 'evil' was a strong word. And now she was right and he was _gone_. Something in her heart was screaming at her to go back, to fix it, to fix it _now_... so here she was, trying to locate the Time-Turner she had filched from the wreckage of the Ministry's collection.

So many times during the last year had she nearly used it...but no time that its use would have been needed could she have used it safely. Driving Harry or Ron accidentally into madness or being hexed or cursed because she was a 'Hermione double' was most definitely _not_ on her to-do list. But now...

Fingers closing around cold, round metal, Hermione bit her lip. She should have enough time, if she hurried. She could save them. She could make a difference. Rubble shook, fell again from the ceiling as people moved about the castle looking for survivors, and she ducked it as she threw the chain around her neck. She heard Harry calling for her and hid.

Panting, she pressed against a wall. Where to start, though?

Hermione glanced at her watch. If she hurried, she could make it. Time Turners could only go back so far... Mind made up, she raced to the Infirmary. She would need potions. Lots of them. Then to the dungeons, to see what she could find there to fulfill her plan.

* * *

Hermione threw the cloak around her shoulders and ducked into an abandoned classroom. She fumbled with the Time-Turner, twisting it to about the time when the battle had begun in earnest. The world spun past silently, encapsulated as she was in her own little bubble.

When she was done, the grave silence of post-battle was broken by screaming, the floor shaking and quivering under her feet. She pulled the Invisibility Cloak on properly and took a deep breath, her hand on the door handle. Hermione tried to remember who had been where, and when. How many could she save? She tried to recall who had been narrowly missed, in case it had been her now-interference that caused it.

Ready, Hermione placed a Silencing Charm over herself and ran into the fray.

Immediately, she had to duck a jet of sizzling red aimed at a fifth-year Slytherin fighting back-to-back with a Hufflepuff she recognised vaguely from Arithmancy last year. Hermione cast a shield charm around them and hurried off, fairly certain they could handle themselves, while she had to try to intervene with those who could not.

Ducking and weaving invisibly through the battle, Hermione found her heart racing just as much as it had the first time. She was terrified, her hands shaking as she uncorked the bottle she held. She had to be quick, had to be _perfect_ , or he was dead, dead for real, dead forever...

Hermione grabbed Fred's sleeve as the spell was fired; it splashed harmlessly into the wall, and the falling rocks blocked the other Weasley's view of him. As quickly as she could, she Stunned him so he fell heavily to the ground. George cried out, his voice full of pain, and she fumbled the vial, nearly spilling it.

 _Just a drop, just need a drop_ , she told herself, managing to the get the Draught of Living Death in his mouth. She moved back just in time; Percy checked Fred's pulse, or lack thereof, and Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. But she couldn't change things, couldn't make him live now... he was out of the way, she had the Wiggenweld's to wake him with later.

She couldn't stay to watch them suffer Fred's loss. Their grief was a real thing, tangible to her aching heartstrings, but she couldn't stay.

Hermione hurried through the castle, casting jinxes at Death Eaters, the occasional Rennervate on students or Order members, and sometimes a Shield Charm to give them a moment's respite. At one she saw Neville grimly tossing a potted Devil's Snare at someone's back as she ran past. The pot shattered and the vines quickly constricted their target. Hermione shuddered: she _still_ had the occasional bad dream about that particular plant.

It took a great deal of running, her lungs burning, before she found Remus and Tonks. And then she had another terrible problem. Hermione froze. They were too far apart. This was something she had not considered, that she couldn't save them both. Her mouth ran dry and tears gathered, stinging and burning. Why couldn't she save them both? Why did she have to choose?

For a brief half-moment, she contemplated letting them both go, but then she remembered they had a child, one who couldn't grow up all alone without parents, and the tears fell.

In that stolen bit of time, Hermione hated herself. She hated what she had done, what she did. How had Dumbledore done it? Manipulated and schemed and used them all? Feeling sick, she ran for Remus. She tried to be analytical about it; Tonks had fallen apart when Remus had rejected her, how could she handle his death? Remus, on the other hand, had survived the loss and betrayal of his friends, being a werewolf... he could survive this. He had his son, he had Harry... And if she was a teeny bit more honest with herself, Harry needed Remus, too.

She just hoped that the Draught of Living Death would make him 'dead' enough for Harry to call him with the Resurrection Stone.

Hermione reached his side as she saw the Avada cast, and yanked him down. His eyes widened, going to Tonks, as Hermione Stunned him. Sobbing silently, she dosed him with the Draught, too, and hurried on, leaving him crumpled, one hand flung out for his wife's.

When she reached a quiet corner, she fell to her knees, retching. How? How could she have done it? Just let Tonks die? Rationalise her way through it? A heaviness weighed down her heart and she felt dirty, filthy, beneath the layers of grime and battle, all the way to her soul. She allowed herself those precious precious moments of pain, of remorse, of grief, before rising unsteadily to her feet. Casting a charm to remove the taste of bile from her mouth, she moved outside of the castle.

Hermione dodged, ducking and weaving, exhausted. She was intervening as she could, but her strength was flagging. Panting, she stopped to catch her breath and check her watch, and she looked around. With a gasp she saw that Colin snuck back with some of the older students, and he was duelling poorly with a Death Eater. She lunged at the Death Eater's legs just as the spell went off, sending it high and wild. Hermione stunned Colin, then the Death Eater, and administered the Draught to the younger Gryffindor with a silent apology.

The clicking of pincers reached her and she turned, horrified, to see the Acromantula coming from the Forest. Harry and Ron had not been exaggerating their size.

She ran for the Whomping Willow, hoping that being invisible would hide her from the tree. No such luck: a branch whipped into her stomach, knocking her onto her back and the wind from her lungs as it broke her Silencing Charm. Pained, she lay there, gasping, before lurching to her feet. She didn't have time to be injured. Something was calling her, tugging her, demanding she get to Snape.

"Wingardium Leviosa," she whispered hoarsely, guiding a fallen stick to the knot at the Willow's base.

She resettled the Cloak around her and recast the charm to keep her silent. If she had it right, she should reach the Shack before Snape, before _You-Know-Who_ , and if she was lucky she would find a place to hide out of the way.

The path to the Shack seemed longer than she remembered, or maybe it was her nerves, or the way her mind screamed at her to hurry, hurry, oh _please_ hurry.

Hermione's eyes widened as she reached the Shack: You-Know-Who was already there. Even though she knew that in a few hours he would be dead, he was still a terrible figure to behold. Hermione prayed and pleaded to anyone and anything that would listen that he would not find her, that Nagini would remain blissfully ignorant about her nearness. As if it would help, Hermione stared out the grimy window, thinking about the scenery.

Time crawled by and she tried very hard not to worry about the people she could not save. It ate at her conscience, gnawing at her. But she was here, now, and couldn't get her feet to listen to her brain to go back even if she wanted to. Snape and her need to try to save him drew her here.

You-Know-Who—she dared not even think his name, not with the Taboo—was talking to someone-Malfoy?-and she heard Snape's name. It came out as a sibilant hiss, 'Sssseverusss', and she found she didn't like it very much at all that way.

When she had thought of her professor in the past—and indeed, she had fallen victim to a rather ferocious crush on him on more than one occasion before he did something completely horrid and drove it off a while longer—she had never thought of his name with such a vulgar tone to it.

Hermione held her breath as the floorboards creaked. His tread was familiar to her: she had crossed his path often on Prefect rounds, had been keenly aware of his position in the classroom, and she closed her eyes tightly. She didn't want to hear them speak again. She didn't want to hear that question in Snape's voice. The confusion.

Her teeth sank into her lip, tears spilling hotly down her cheeks at that horrible scream. Her hands trembled, and that pressing feeling of now, now, _now, fix it, damn it, make it right, bring him back_ had returned, weighing heavily in her gut.

As soon as she, Ron, and Harry had left, Hermione leapt from her hiding place. The cloak caught on the clasp of the Time-Turner as she shrugged it off. The cloak puddled to her feet. "Rennervate," she said shakily, pointing her wand at Snape. He took a sudden breath, a gasp of pain.

His eyes blinked and sought hers. His words were garbled, but she heard him clearly: " _There_ you are."

"Yes, I'm here." She offered him as kind a smile as she could and fell to her knees. Pain lanced through her knee and she ignored it, pouring potions into him, placing the bezoar in his mouth for him to swallow, and began casting all the healing spells she knew to repair his ruined throat. Hermione's hands trembled in relief as the skin began to knit together and the bleeding stopped. Then she paused: her hands were transparent with a soft glow to them. She looked down at her body: all of her was transparent, and the remnants of the Time-Turner lay crushed under her knee, her blood and his mingling.

"Oh no," she said, very faintly.

And then she was gone, ripped sideways through time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note** : Warnings: self-harm, canon character death. I do apologise, as well... this is a very short fic, at a mere three chapters, and they are not terribly long. Once again, thanks to the lovely adelarchersnape for beta-reading and brit-picking for me. (Sorry for posting this all at once, but I wanted to get it up for you all before I left for my grandmother's funeral.) 

* * *

**Chapter 2: Severus's Life**

The angel by his side was one of the few things he could remember from his early childhood. He was forever getting injured: scraped and bruised and burned and whatnot as he played in his mother's hidden potion room, and he never recalled seeing her before.

He had taken it upon himself to climb out of his narrow bedroom window and up to the roof: Mummy was in pain again, hurting so badly, and he wanted to make a wish for her to be better. Wishing worked best on the stars, and if he wanted to be heard, he had reasoned with the logic of a five-year-old child, then he had best be close as he could.

Severus had finished his wish without incident, but on the way back down he had slipped. The house wasn't terribly tall, but the fall was still painful. Teeth sank into his lip as he bit back tears. Da would be crosser if he cried. Afraid to move, Severus didn't notice the soft golden glow until a hand extended itself over him. He could feel the bones in his shattered leg knitting back together, the pain going away. The person-shaped glow brushed his hair off his forehead, and he couldn't make out any details. Still, he felt better, and as the angel—for what else could it have been, no star had fallen to earth—disappeared, he found himself able to move and clamber up the drain-pipe to his tiny room.

In the morning, his mother didn't believe him, calling it a dream as she picked up after her husband's drinking. And his wish did not come true, for she still bore the bruises he had wished to be gone. 

* * *

Wishes came to naught, and he stopped climbing to the roof.

Over the years, Severus saw his indistinct angel several times. He got up his father's nose often, trying to shield Mum from his fists with his own body. Several times he ended up flat on his back, nose broken, ribs creaking, with blood and bruises.

And yet, each time, the angel appeared. Each time, he was left with a bitter taste in his mouth and his wounds mostly healed. No one seemed to see it but him, even when his father towered over him as he writhed in pain, shouting down at him.

Severus had often tried to grasp that ethereal hand, but his fingers passed through it.

Some nights, as the heartache of his life got to him, with his fervent wish for more—more freedom, more joy than the handful of stolen minutes with Lily, more money, more safety—the angel would appear, a golden shimmer in the air beside his bed. It would reach for him, seeming to almost soothe him, and sometimes now and then he thought he saw eyes or a mouth and once some hair. After his unlikely companion had gone, he would wonder on it. Were there angels in the wizarding world? Aside from old school books awaiting him, they no longer had any tomes for him to study. He only had the stories that Mum told, hushed in secret after his father had fallen asleep in his armchair. The potions lab that he had once played and read in was long-destroyed. 

* * *

It was at Hogwarts after a nasty hit with a Beater's bat—it had come from seemingly nowhere, though he had heard familiar barking laughter—that he finally realised that the bitterness left in his mouth after the angel left was that of Blood Replenisher or other potions. He studied obsessively until he could identify each one.

The bitterness had begun to spread, however. The angel—for lack of a better term, though he no longer believed in such a benign being—helped him heal, yes, but the damn thing never intervened. It never saved him. It never actually _aided_ him, and he began to resent it.

"Go away," he told it dully one night after a run-in with the Marauders. His back ached from the hex Pettigrew had thrown. The golden figure offered him a kind smile, and took his bodily pain away. It seemed sad to go, but he did not care if it stayed or never came back.

It could not, after all, heal the pain festering in his heart. 

* * *

The angel did not come to him often now, for he had figured the pattern. When he lay prone with his injuries, it would come. Sometimes he saw it crying, sometimes it smiled. Sometimes its hand tried to offer him comfort he did not want.

It had come to him the night that Black had tried to get him killed, placing itself between him and the werewolf as he lay paralyzed with fear. Potter hadn't seen it as he dragged him backwards through the tunnel.

That night, he had felt that he _deserved_ his little protector.

But now, tonight... he had lost his only friend today. And it was all his fault. There was absolutely nothing the angel could do for him. Still, as he stayed resolutely still with his eyes shut tight in his four-poster as the other boys in his dorm slumbered, he could feel a sort of warmth by his side. It stayed nearly the whole night while he pretended to sleep and pain ate away at him. He didn't deserve comfort.

In the morning, with his unlikely invisible companion gone, he decided to listen to what Malfoy had to say. No one else was offering him a paid apprenticeship straight out of school, were they? No one else was offering him prestige and a place to belong. Might as well see what it was about. 

* * *

The angel was a woman the night that Lily died, Severus noticed. Her outline was faint, and he wondered who she had pissed off to be stuck protecting his sorry life. Was it perhaps penance for some sin? If so, who would he be forced into servitude for?

Severus almost wanted to find out.

He lay on his bathroom floor now, the angel flitting worriedly about him. He had slashed his wrists wide and didn't really care any more if she saved him or not. Everything was his fault. On one hand, he knew that Albus was right and he had to protect Lily's son. It was his fault, anyway. He owed her ghost—and Potter's—that much.

The angel staunched his wounds, took away the physical pain, but his heart felt emptier than ever. Her hand cupped his cheek, and sometimes now he thought he could feel her skin, as if she was somehow becoming real.

"I don't care," he told her. His words were slurred, and he nudged the broken Firewhiskey bottle with his boot. "I don't want to feel anymore."

Hot wetness fell on his face.

She was crying. Crying over him.

"Why do you care?"

As always, there was no answer. Only healing. 

* * *

He had less need for his angel—for she was his, unequivocally his—these days. No one, not Lily, not Albus, knew him like she did. He wished she was real, that he could pull her from that glow or join her. Solitude was his burden, guilt the yoke it dangled upon. But he was not injured often. He had become faster at stopping explosions, going so far as to skim the very surface of his classes' thoughts to see who was and was not paying attention.

And if Severus, the dreaded Professor Snape, was completely honest with himself, he missed her.

Missed that someone cared enough to come to his side when he was hurt or ill. Missed that comfortable presence of hers. Albus did not care, did not trust him despite his words. Severus was keenly aware that to everyone he was a bully (and he was, but did not know any other way to be) and greasy and unwanted and disliked.

But not to his angel. She had wept over him.

It became an addiction, her presence. A terrible need to be loved, to be cared for. For someone who _knew_ him and all he had gone through.

That craving was what started it. On nights when the world grew too much to bear, he found himself rolling up his sleeves. The pain was always the same, and he found he did not quite yet want to die, as he had work to do, but as he lay back on his plush bed—a luxury he had never had before teaching and sometimes did not think he deserved—and bled, his angel would come.

The first time he had done this, after Lily's death, he had frightened the angel, for it had wept again and healed him furiously. Now...now it healed him slowly, gently. Often he fancied it spoke in a voice he could not hear. She took her time by his side, eking out every moment she could. He saw eyes now, kind eyes. She understood what he needed. Why he was doing it.

Severus held off as long as he could, but he always found himself lying in his blood while she cared for him. He would stare at her, memorise the features he could just make out now. He would talk to her about what he wanted. About what he had been doing while she had been away. About Potter coming to Hogwarts and how the boy had formed a horrid little trio. She laughed at that, at his colorful description of Potter's friends.

It was not until the night of the Dark Lord's return and he lay writhing under the Cruciatus as payment for his delay and possible betrayal that he recognised his blurry angel's features as that of Hermione Granger. 

* * *

"It's you," he said thickly to her one night that summer after returning from the Dark Lord's side. "Potter's friend."

He was too tired to sneer the statement. She tilted her head and nodded. Her mouth shaped words, but no sound came. Severus waved a hand to make her stop trying. He knew what Granger's voice sounded like. He just couldn't fathom what had made _this_ happen. He worked his jaw as the healing that accompanied her arrival repaired his bitten tongue, soothed the nerves shredded from pain.

Part of him wanted to take what felt like a betrayal out on the girl in his class, but the other part of him... She knew him, this Granger. Knew his life and his choices and his follies. He did not want to give her up. He could not bear to be alone.

"Do you remember me every time you come?" A nod. "Am I the only one you come to?" Another nod. "Why? When?"

More silence, and he relaxed into his bed at last, his hurts mended. "I don't want this."

A shrug. She was fading and looking sorry to go.

How old was she when she ended up tied to him, he wondered. And did she truly care for him, even just a little? 

* * *

Severus called to her shortly after the start of term. She came without sound, as always, and began healing the gashes in his wrists. "Why me, Granger?"

He tried another question: "Are you going to die?"

She shrugged. Interesting. "When did this happen?"

Two fingers. "Two years?"

A nod. He lay in silence and she took her time healing. He never had to actually drink the potion she administered him, but the effect was the same. As she started to fade, he couldn't stop the words from escaping his battered heart: "Do you truly care if I live or die?"

An emphatic nod, and she was gone. 

* * *

Severus didn't know what to think. His angel—for she always would have that title to him—was a constant companion these nights. He knew his temper was shorter, his pallor worse, but he needed her. Needed her comfort. What Albus had asked of him was foul, was gnawing away at his very soul.

Granger was understanding, but clearer than ever. She was hardly older than the girl in his classroom, but thinner and somehow more haggard. He wanted to ask if they won the war that was brewing, but very much didn't want the answer. If the Light lost, he would find a way to end it without her interference.

He spent far too much time dwelling on his student, and found to his surprise that _he_ cared. She was pretty, he supposed, but that had never mattered much to him. No, she was brilliant. Fierce and loyal and everything he was not. Severus could not lie to himself, but felt dirty, sick, about the thoughts he had had about her.

Some nights his injuries were not merely for companionship, but to try to cleanse himself. He should not be falling in love with his student, no matter the strange circumstances under which it had come about.

Oh, he still spoke to her, his voice soft through the pleasant burn of the cuts, unable not to. He cared for her too much. He asked her questions, yes-or-no, in an effort to know to her better. And all that he learned of her only made him want more.

She still smiled at him kindly, took the time to touch his face, once tracing his nose. Sometimes he pretended that she stared at his mouth and thought about him kissing her.

But each time he asked, "Do you care if I live or die?"

And she always nodded. 

* * *

The year he was Headmaster was the worst. The guilt was pain enough to call her, and sometimes he still found himself slicing his arms open to make the pain inside go away. He could not do this. He was not strong enough. He could not protect the school or the students. He had no idea where Potter was, if he was safe.

And he had no idea if _she_ was safe.

Hermione, his own personal angel, looked more troubled than ever at his appearance. She lingered each time as long as she could, appearing so clearly now. Her Muggle clothes were torn and dirty, blood running from her knee and tear tracks in the dust of her face. She looked like she had faced battle, yet reassured him she had not died. He took little comfort in it.

Once in a while as she worked on him he thought he felt the brush of her warm skin, but when he tried to lay his hand on hers it passed through.

She still tried to answer his questions, let him speak to her. Was it his imagination still, or did she look like she wanted to hold him? Often now, he found himself staring at her mouth and thought about kissing her.

He had the dreadful feeling that he was going to die unloved and unwanted and without having kissed her. At least he had kissed Lily once, on the hand but it had been enough. He had never had that with Hermione.

"Granger," he said one spring night, watching the laceration on his arm knit itself shut without a trace. She turned to him, the golden glow fainter than ever. "Do you care if I live or die?"

She nodded again.

He hesitated, his heart torn. He had to know... "Do you care about me?"

Her hand cupped his face and her smile was so sad he wanted to break. She nodded and where her lips should have been brushed his forehead.

"Miss Granger—Hermione—I," but she was gone. 

* * *

"Rennervate." It was her voice and he gasped, the pain running through him. He had never heard her before. Severus's eyes found her face. She was not glowing: was she truly here? Had whatever it was that sent her to him ended?

His words were garbled, but he had to speak to her. " _There_ you are."

"Yes, I'm here." She offered him a kind smile and fell to her knees beside him with a crunch of glass.

This time was different: she was _real_ , pouring potions into him, placing the bezoar in his mouth for him to swallow, and casting healing spells to repair his ruined throat. Her hands, usually so steady, trembled in relief as the skin began to knit together and the bleeding stopped. Then she paused and his eyes followed her dismayed gaze: her hands were transparent with a soft glow to them. They looked down at her body: all of her was transparent, and the remnants of the Time-Turner lay crushed under her knee, her blood and his mingling.

"Oh no," she said, very faintly.

And then she was gone, and he was alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Ah yes. The final chapter of this short little tale. As with the previous two chapters, thanks to the lovely adelarchersnape for beta-reading and brit-picking for me! (I did post this chapter the same day as chapter 2. If you have missed Severus's life, PLEASE go back a chapter! I really wanted to get this up for you all before I left town for a week.)

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Coming Together**

Severus was shocked: she was _gone_. She should not be gone. Hermione belonged with _him_. He gathered his strength, forcing through the pain to roll to his front and push himself to his hands and knees. Where she had knelt in his blood lay what looked like the shattered remains of a Time-Turner and Potter's silvery cloak. Stomach heaving as his head spun, he swallowed down the urge to vomit and picked up the fragile gold chain.

It was indeed a Time-Turner. Her blood soaked the shards, and he saw none of the sand that had filled the vial. His blood ran cold. This had caused it. Had brought her to him. This moment, this..rescue full of potion bottles—Blood Replenisher, Draught of Living Death and its antidote, Dittany, and more—had been the catalyst for his angel's presence in his life.

Severus crawled to the nearest piece of furniture and made it to his feet. He felt like he had run for miles, and still he had too far to go. A search of his pockets found his wand (hers had vanished with her, back along the course of his life) and he Summoned Potter's cloak and slung it around his shoulders.

It was slow going through the tunnel, and he stopped often to lean against the earthen wall for support. His neck burned, her work left unfinished before her disappearance, and he used his cravat and handkerchief as a makeshift bandage. It would likely scar, and he didn't truly mind.

Exiting the tunnel, he forgot about the damn tree and ended up knocked back, away from the trunk. Flat on his back, he tried to catch his breath. Hermione shimmered into existence beside him and he reached for her reflexively: he could nearly touch her, but the pain faded quickly and so did she.

Something told him he did not have much time, so he pulled the Invisibility Cloak around himself once more and made his way through the castle. He heard the cheering, saw the Dark Lord's corpse for himself. He saw the bodies lined along the hall—too many, far too many—but he was looking for Potter.

"I can't find her! She was...she was just here!" Harry's voice was panicked, and Severus hurried towards it, finding him and two of the Weasleys in an abandoned classroom.

"I know where she is," Severus said without preamble, dropping the cloak.

Three wands were pointed at him, but lowered when his appearance registered. Potter seemed relieved and surprised to see him alive. "You do? Where?"

Severus grimaced. "It is...difficult to explain when I do not know the full circumstances." He held up the chain. "She came to heal me, I assume, using this as her vehicle. It broke, and she disappeared."

"Where'd she get that?" Ronald Weasley asked. His sister thumped his arm.

"That's not good, is it?" she asked.

"I assume not."

"If it broke, she is no longer anchored in time," Dumbledore said from the portrait behind him. Severus turned. Apparently the old man had wanted to see the victory. "She is lost."

"She is anchored, actually," Severus replied. "She has been frolicking along my timeline for as long as I can recall."

"Ah. Then there is hope."

"You've seen her?"

"Your whole life?"

"What's she doing?"

Severus scowled at the three of them. "Yes, yes, and she spends it healing me. Like some sort of demented echo." He didn't mean that part, and tried to gentle his tone. It was not easy. "I did not know who she was for a very long time as she was little more than a person-shaped glow."

Ginevra smiled at him. "So how do we get her back?"

Of course, she wasn't addressing him, but Albus. It rankled at Severus. "I don't know. You would need the right circumstances and to try to pull her back into this time before the Miss Granger of now departs. And even if you do succeed," Dumbledore continued, "she may be different than when she left."

Severus tilted his head, his mind working. He refused to think she would be different. She was strong, she was fierce, she was intelligent and everything to him now. "She was nearly tangible outside, when the Whomping Willow struck me," he said. "Unfortunately the circumstances changed before..."

He turned, found a spot on the floor, and rolled up his sleeves. With the familiar spell he slit his arms open and laid back. Potter made a noise of alarm. Hermione appeared and the healing magic she came with bound his injuries. He grabbed a knee, the trio and portrait apparently not seeing her, feeling the firmness of her bone and leg but she faded.

With a curse, he sat up. His mouth tasted again of bitter potion.

"Potter," he barked. The boy snapped to attention. Severus hoped the Horcrux in his skull was gone, but he could worry later. Right now, he needed to save his angel. "Do you still hate me?"

"Er...why?"

"The circumstances of which Dumbledore are speaking require me to be prone and in pain. That is what ties her echo to me. I cannot maintain my own injuries and hold her here. If you can manage an Unforgivable, that may lend us enough time."

His green, green eyes were wide.

"You have to mean it," Ginevra said to Harry. His chin lifted.

"I think I can."

Severus lay back, his heart pounding with fear. If he failed, was she lost forever? And if he succeeded, would she still care for him?

"Crucio!"

The pain that ripped through him was not nearly as bad as the Dark Lord's curses had been, but it was still enough to make his nerves burn. Hermione was nearly instantly at his side, reaching for him. He grit his teeth and grasped her hands. She started to fade as the boy lost the spell, her eyes panicked.

"Crucio!" Potter managed again.

Severus gasped in pain and clasped her more tightly to him. He wrapped his arms around what probably looked like nothing. To his surprise, he felt her warmth around him, too.

"Crucio!" Ginevra's voice, keeping the spell going. Her tone was full of determination and Severus was reminded that she had been possessed by a Horcrux at one point. Unwilling or no, she had learned something from the experience, for that sort of hate was not easy to come by.

He bit his tongue and his legs spasmed, but he did not let go. Her hair tickled his nose, and she cried out. He could hear her, a good sign.

"Crucio!" Potter called waveringly.

His world was fire and pain, melting him down and reshaping him. Through it all, Severus clung to Hermione, unwilling to watch her fade. _If she goes, take me, too. For I cannot stand to be alone._ She was sobbing into his neck, fingers gripping his coat.

"Stop! Stop!" Ronald cried. "I see her! She's back!"

The pain ended, blessed relief. He released her and his arms flopped, useless, to his sides. He took in breath gratefully, aware that blood was once again trickling down his neck.

Hermione seemed uncaring of his injured state, for she flung her arms around him in gratitude and kissed his pale cheek. "Oh, thank you, thank you, oh I'm real again..."

She was pulled back by her friends, who hugged her. Severus, lying there like a discarded doll, felt the pang at losing her, his constant companion. No amount of pain would bring her to him now. He was hollow inside, clear to his soul. How could he go on?

"Ron," Hermione said gently, twisting from his embrace.. "Let go. I, er, well.. I'm sorry but..."

The red-head's shoulders fell.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I don't want to hurt you, but…"

"You're different now?" Ron guessed.

"Yes." She glanced over at where _her_ professor lay alone with his pain. "I've spent a lifetime with him and I know it's Professor Snape and he was our teacher and horrid and-a"

Ron shushed her. "It's okay." To his credit, he gave her a smile and stuck out his hand. "Friends?"

Hermione smiled and took it, relieved not to have lost him. "Always."

She hugged Ginny and then Harry. Quickly as she could, swallowing the pain and guilt down again she explained what she had done with her stolen time and handed Harry the vial of Wiggenweld. Tears spilled as she apologised for Tonks, for the people she had not been able to save, but they gave her strained smiled with assurances that they understood.

She very much doubted that they did.

When the tale was all told, the three of them left her alone with Snape and a nosy portrait.

The whole ordeal being over and her part done left her nearly drunk with relief before she turned to the man on the floor. She sat beside him on the flagstones and began casting spells.

"Stop it," he said, feeling her magic repair him.

She shook her head. "Never," she whispered. "I know you too well, Professor."

He was quiet, her familiar magic washing over him. "Severus."

Her smile was brilliant. "Severus."

He inhaled, a long, slow breath. "I am too old."

"Then I am older, for I have had my life and shared yours," she told him tartly. "And I understand, I think," she continued in a gentler tone, "for I made choices when I came back. I had to choose who to save. I have watched people die who I could not. I have cast spells with the intent to hurt, I have been hurt in return. I am not the same person I was when last I was your student."

"No," Severus whispered. He levered himself to a sitting position with her help. He cupped her cheek, and wondered that his voice was shaky with emotion. "You are my angel."

She smiled. "And I always will be."

And then he kissed her, as she had always wanted him to do.

* * *

 _-The End-_


End file.
